No Saints Day
by DreadNot
Summary: Iscariot drabbles. Alexander Anderson, Enrico Maxwell, Father Renaldo, Yumiko Takagi, and Wolfe Heinkel all have their moments in these short ficlets. Some spoilers, all genres.
1. Pension Plan

_These ficlets range from 100 to about 600 words. They were written for a variety of reasons, including writing challenges, exercises to get around writer__'__s block, and just because I bloody well felt like it. There are a variety of subjects and flavors. Hopefully you'l__l find something palatable.

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She hadn't thought to live to an age where she'd no longer be able to fight. Wolfe Heinkel had performed her duties as an Iscariot assassin for so many years with a sort of suicidal abandon that she had always expected would someday earn her a bullet to the head or a knife in the back some quiet night. 

She hadn't expected to retire, nor to lose her usefulness to Section XIII. She was ill-equipped to teach, with no patience and no skill in imparting what she knew to others anyway. Those who can't, teach goes the old saw. Heinkel had always been one of those who could, and therefore, did.

Until time took that away from her. She was too slow, her eyesight no longer keen, her reflexes were diminished.

She felt useless.

An adult lifetime as a holy murderer, and it was over. They tried to find other work for her, but she was unsuited for paperwork or teaching or even for a life of meditation and prayer. She was a killer, plain and simple and with no more killing to do, Wolfe Heinkel had nothing.

She looked at the noose and thought that it was a fitting end for an Iscariot.


	2. A Perfect Gentleman

"Did they hurt you?" 

Integral looked around at the milling Iscariots and laughed – a short, sharp bark of laughter. "These? They're nothing."

"What about him?" A nod toward Father Anderson, who was watching them like a hawk.

"Him? He's been a perfect gentleman," Integral said dismissively.

Seras' one eye widened and she stared at Integral as though she'd grown another head. "Father Anderson? A perfect gentleman?"

"Yes," she blew a cloud of cigar smoke into the air.

Seras looked at the paladin, trying to see the "perfect gentleman" instead of the fanatical killer.

Maybe it was something around the eyes…


	3. Best Intentions

"Have you ever considered contact lenses?" 

Yumiko looked up from her reading of Aquinas' _Summa theologica_ and blinked at the young priest who had sat across from her at the library table.

"I only ask because I see you wearing your glasses all the time, and I hear that you are a fighter when you aren't here at Iscariot headquarters." The young man essayed a smile, "Father Renaldo speaks quite highly of your abilities."

Ah, one of Renaldo's new crop, that explained a lot. If the young man lived through Renaldo's training, he'd understand not to ask such questions.

Yumiko tried to smile but only succeeded in looking sad. She pushed her glasses back up on her nose. "I take them off when I fight."


	4. Forward Backward

As objects of desire went, for most people it would be innocuous. But for a nun in service to Iscariot and headquartered in the Vatican, the desire Yumiko felt for an idolatrous piece of sculpture was unacceptable.

She knew why she couldn't get her mind off of the bust of Janus she saw sitting in the window of a gallery in Rome. That didn't make it any easier for her. It was a statue of a Roman _god_ for pity's sake. She couldn't own it no matter how it spoke to her.

But at night, when she closed her eyes, she saw that bust – a man's head with two faces, one looking forward, the other back. Sometimes, when she fell asleep, the bust changed, and the faces looking forward and back were hers – hers and Yumi's – one placid and smiling, the other snarling and vicious.

Sometimes when she thought about that sculpture, she wondered about her soul. Did she have two souls? One for Yumi and one for Yumiko? She hated wondering that because it made her wonder if she only had one soul because there was really only one person.

She decided she didn't need that sculpture after all. 


	5. How Soon Is Now?

It was time for the final push, the effort that would bring Section XIII's only hope face to face with the vampire, Alucard.

Father Renaldo had done everything he could. When he'd strapped on the harness loaded with grenades, he had not expected his brash and youthful companions to follow his example. It had brought tears to his eyes to see the Iscariots, his pupils, his _family,_ as they prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to help cleanse the world of the vampire's filth.

Despite the fact that Alexander Anderson had _killed_ Archbishop Maxwell, Renaldo still knew that the big man was their only hope. The old priest ushered his flock of killers out of the shelter where they'd turned themselves into living bombs and back into the thick of the melee.

The paladin became the killing point of the wedge the Iscariots formed. When the first explosion sounded, Renaldo was too immersed in the dispassionate focus of battle to say goodbye to Father Samuelson. They would see each other in the afterlife soon enough.

He watched more of his students go down without giving up, taking with them as many of the damned undead as they could. Every Iscariot made his death count twenty times over and more.

Renaldo glanced away from the creatures he was fighting to assess their progress in getting Anderson to his opponent. He could see a flash of red from a flaring coat and heard the distinctive report from the vampire's hand cannons. For a moment, Father Renaldo was transfixed by the sight of Alexander Anderson's own version of his companions' suicide attacks.

_Dear God, we've all sacrificed so much in your name today, please watch over your servant._

Renaldo never found out whether God answered his prayer for the traitor paladin. At least not in this life. The creatures around him took advantage of the man's distraction to break through his guard. He forced himself to hang on until enough of his enemies had gotten close to him to make the sacrifice worthwhile.

Choices made, prayers said, Father Renaldo looked at the pin in his hand and wryly thought, _I'm getting too old for this._


	6. OOC

"I didn't think she was the type," Father Renaldo whispered, looking over his shoulder to be sure they weren't overheard.

Enrico Maxwell shrugged and looked down at his hands. "It doesn't interfere with her duties, it's not a sin per se. I have no reason to interfere with her personal choices."

"It just seems so out of character for her, though."

"We're Iscariots," Maxwell replied as though that explained everything.

Father Renaldo nodded as though it did explain everything and held out his hand, "Give me Sister Heinkel's mail and I'll deliver it to her room."

Maxwell took one last look at the Victoria's Secret catalog in his hand and handed it over with a sigh.  



	7. Out of the Mouths of Babes

"Father Anderson?" the little boy tugged at the priest's cassock. 

The towering man should have terrified children with his scarred face and scruffy appearance, but it was just the opposite. They knew they were safe with him – no monster would dare intrude where their protector stood watch.

"What do ye need, Brian?" Anyone who had seen Anderson fulfilling his other calling would not have recognized the loving smile he turned on the child. He loved all his children.

"Father Anderson, will protestants really go to hell?"

Anderson's smile slipped a notch. Where had the boy come up with that question?

"I used to think so, lad…"


	8. Premonition

It was going so beautifully. They would raze London and build England's capitol anew as a Catholic city leading a Catholic nation. Finally, a use for those pagan Nazis the Vatican had allowed to escape so many decades ago.

He stood beneath and behind his protective canopy and watched as he was lowered into London. The blessings on his shelter would keep Dracula and his minions as well as Millennium's vampires out. Bulletproof glass would shield him from stray weaponfire, and his knights and warriors would keep him safe until it was time to walk through the rubble, blessing the ground to reclaim it for the Church.

He was too important to risk, after all. He was an archbishop.

His lips skinned away from his teeth in feral pleasure as he watched the destruction of London. Somewhere out there was his only true enemy, the only one worthy of his personal attention. His people would fetch her and then she and Maxwell would speak.

Before he had her executed for heresy.

Perhaps he'd have Integral Hellsing burned at the stake for willfully consorting with a demon like Dracula. Oh yes, that seemed fitting – just another funeral pyre in the midst of the greater conflagration that pushed the dark of night away from London.

And then all of Maxwell's dreams and fantasies were quite literally blown to hell by one bullet that destroyed the helicopter that had been dangling him over the battle. Maxwell lost his smile to a grimace of terror as he plummeted to the ground, but he survived and his protective bubble was still intact. He let himself believe that he would survive this. It was God's will.

And there was God's servant, Alexander Anderson to protect him from the encroaching minions of Satan in the guise of Hellsing's vampire. Anderson would protect him as he had since Maxwell was a child.

He let himself believe that he would survive.

And he was betrayed, playing Christ to Anderson's Judas when he watched those blessed bayonets fly, not at the evil around him, but at Maxwell's own shelter. Anderson gave him not to the Romans, but to the devil himself.

_"Traitor!"_

"Chief. Please wake up. **Chief Maxwell."**

Maxwell pulled the newspaper away from his face and sat up, wiping the spittle away from his mouth. _Only a dream. Thank God, only a dream._

Why then did news of Anderson's actions send a cold chill down his spine? 


	9. Schism

Yumiko doesn't meditate. She can't. She's afraid to.

When Yumiko meditates, Yumi's there waiting for her. Yumi's waiting to talk to her, waiting to convince her that it's time she accept both sides of herself instead of insisting on this schismed personality.

Meditation makes Yumi sound rational and Yumiko can't accept that. Yumi is the _irrational_ part of herself who does those horrible things with a sword. Yumiko isn't like that – she's sweet and self-effacing and as harmless as a butterfly.

Yumi exists because Yumiko needs her. Yumiko needs Yumi to be the killer. Yumiko needs Yumi to carry the weight of the evil they do.

If you were to ask the chicken and egg question about this situation, the answer would be that the killer came before Yumi.  



	10. Serving God

Who do you think I serve, Maxwell? Do I serve you? The Pope? The name of our Church?

Have you forgotten?

Of course you have.

I serve God.

I don't serve your ambition. I don't serve territorial greed. I don't serve a human construction.

Not above God.

And I'll put aside my feelings to serve God. I'll put aside my loyalties to serve God. I'll put aside my very soul in service to God.

Today I will serve God as only an Iscariot can. As Jude gave Jesus to the Romans for sacrifice, I give you, Enrico, to the dead. 


	11. Things Change

If you'd asked me before if I ever felt guilt, I would have told you not just no, but hell no. No guilt over the executions of heretics and blasphemers. No guilt over killing creatures that looked human but weren't. No guilt.

And what changed? The world didn't. Well, yes, the world changed in some superficial and temporary ways, but the world really is the same wicked place now that it was before. The church didn't. It was the same institution it had been for far longer than I've been alive. The truly rotten parts are all at the top and are just replaced with more rot. The more things change…we all know the rest.

So what had to have changed was me. I can tell you the exact moment it happened. I have always known that Alexander's writ comes from God. That it is his faith and the purity of his absolute belief in God that gives him the gifts he has. When I saw him betray Maxwell and the Church to aid the Hellsing woman and his writ was with him, I knew that God was with him and not Enrico, and not the pope who ordered it to begin with. I knew that what God wanted was what my conscience wanted, too.

So, I followed her, too. I fought beside Integral Hellsing and Alexander Anderson and even Dracula himself and I did it knowing that what I was doing was right.

I feel no guilt for doing that. I feel guilt for not having opened my eyes sooner.  



	12. Promotion Opportunities

A slim young man slid around the corner, his pale skin blotched with hectic red and one eye twitching erratically. An outsider might have raised an eyebrow at one so young already in clerical garb, but in Section XIII, it was the norm. As was the fact that this young man was in one sort of trouble or another.

"Enrico! Give those back before she kills something!" Another youth in a cassock slid and almost fell taking the sharp turn into the broad gallery that ringed the cloister courtyard.

"Piss off, Wolfe. This has nothing to do with you." Enrico didn't look back at his pursuer, instead putting on a burst of speed. If he could make it out of here, he could lose Wolfe in the dormitories. This argument wasn't that one's business anyway, this was between him and…

Almost there.

Enrico ducked through the door out of the cloister and stopped short when a steely grip clamped down on his collar. He gagged when the grip tightened chokingly, but the owner of the iron hand relaxed it enough to allow his captive to breathe.

"Father Renaldo, I was just…"

"He was being an…" interrupted Wolfe, whose mouth shut with a snap when Renaldo turned a sharp eye toward the latecomer.

Renaldo brought his other hand around to show them the girl dangling from his grip like a scruffed kitten. "Someone has Yumiko's glasses." He fixed Enrico with a glare. "And if that someone doesn't put them on Yumie's face right this instant, that someone is going to be scrubbing the cathedral floor on his bare hands and knees for the rest of the month." 

Enrico fished Yumiko's glasses out of his pocket and held them out. Yumie, until now quiet in Renaldo's hold began to kick and jerk to get away.

"Let me," muttered Wolfe and took the glasses from Enrico. After kicking Wolfe in the stomach once and biting hard enough to leave a bruise, Yumiko's glasses finally found their home on her nose and the violence ended.

"Now, someone will tell me what this was about."

The three young Iscariots looked at each other before Enrico cleared his throat. "I set Yumie loose on Bartlett, sir."

"And I tried to stop him," interrupted Wolfe, subsiding when Renaldo held up a hand.

"Why did you set Yumie on Bartlett?" Renaldo frowned and shook Enrico when the young man didn't answer.

"Succession by assassination." Enrico's eye was twitching crazily and every word showed more teeth than was normal. "It's tradition."

"Bartlett is in a senior position, Maxwell. You don't think to jump ranks like that, do you?" He shook his head and sighed when the young man only looked at him defiantly. This boy had been nothing trouble and promised to continue to be nothing else.

He was going to need someone to keep an eye on him. 


End file.
